Margaret Atwood and softball

Well, you are looking for the connection between the two, I suppose? Don’t worry too much, I’m a bit confused myself.

Difficult to see the community of ideas, unless M^me Atwood, in a forthcoming book, will play The Scarlet Maid in right field for the national team of the Republic of Gilead, where the action of the novel takes place.

It is not obvious, this link, but it exists, if I manage to disentangle myself in my shoelaces and explain to you in order another beautiful slice of life.

You see, a couple of years ago, I entertained some fantasies by visualizing the retirement to come.

A first was to participate in the Salon du livre de Québec as an unimportant guy, a solitary parishioner and attentive to the conferences of the invited authors.

And the other was to develop my athletic potential, shake things up and start playing softball again.

A third, but I won’t dwell on that, was driving a snowcat in the winter to plow the sidewalks at night, smoking cigarettes and plugged into a radio listening to some poor guy at the end of his career.

I confess that I’m excited like a flea to play ball this summer, a kid. I went to buy some cleats, and I almost slept in them, like my son at the time who slept a few nights with his first hockey helmet, which he wore 24 hours a day.

Red, my galoshes. Color of humility. And freshly painted jackets, orange Flyers, and black, like misery, or the ideas that Eric Caire crushes, or like in the tunnel of Bernard Drainville’s imaginary third link.

The trouble is that equipped with brand new like that, there is a risk of announcing too big. You’ll have to live up to the quality of the rig, yes, but never forget that “error is wet”, as Jean Perron would have said.

I’ll play first base mitt in fire ! Not a bullet will pass by my side. I will lie down in front of them, I will swallow them if necessary. And I warn opponents who would plan to line up towards my cushion that I have not seen anything in the rules that explicitly prohibits body checks…

They will call me The Wall!

Good, good, good, we calm down there, there!

So, Margaret now, and the Book Fair.

Mayor, it was complicated to take the time to read a book at the Salon, or to listen to the authors cushy.

Now that I’m being ignored, but above all that I can avoid eye contact without looking like a cracking chosen one, the tour is easier.

Compulsive buyer, I came out with a dozen books, including The history of Vachon little cakes, to offer a great guy I just met, Fabien Cloutier, and I’m dying to go see the show. The idea is that Fabien comes from Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce, kingdom of little cakes.

My program was to go and listen to five or six authors during the Salon. I finally managed to attend two conferences, agenda problems, deja vu, already… Fantasy interrupted.

First of all Amélie Nothomb, a tasty and sparkling presence, who confessed to having been published for the first time in her 11^e manuscript, if I remember correctly. There is hope for apprentices.

After about thirty novels published, out of more than a hundred manuscripts written so far, a rigorous woman who always gets up at 4 a.m. for a creative session until 8 a.m. Four hours of daily suffering, according to his words.

Before I get up at 4 a.m. to write, things will have to go wrong, boss!

And finally, the high priestess of Canadian literature: Margaret Atwood.

A respectful one who insisted on speaking French during the hour and a half of her presence. Admirable, but still difficult for her, and for us. But how can we blame such deference towards us? My respects, madam!

Again to give hope, she told us about a signing session of her first novel, The edible woman, in the women’s underwear department of Edmonton’s Hudson Bay store. Two books sold…

It takes faith to live your life as a writer in Edmonton with both feet in the tar sands!

I read burning questions, where she deals with countless topics. Yes, she writes tall stories with exceptional talent, but her view of society is surgically relevant and has a mind-blowing capacity for premonition.

This lucidity also earned him the honor of being part of the list of authors whose books have been the most banned in school districts in the USA, according to a compilation made public by PEN America.^⁠1.

Nearly 60% of all books banned in the US are banned in two states, Texas and Florida^⁠2led by great Republican poets, Governors Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis, who would see themselves as president of the country.